Intraluminal procedures are regularly carried out during the practice of contemporary medicine. These procedures may be completed within existing lumens of the body as well as in areas of the body that are not readily accessible through a lumen, in which case a temporary lumen may need to be inserted into the body to perform the procedure.
Intraluminal procedures may be performed to achieve numerous and various goals and objectives. These can include delivering therapeutic to a target site, analyzing and sampling tissue deep within the body, and performing surgical procedures. When performing any of these procedures a medical practitioner may first insert a working channel into the body and may then steer a second catheter through it to reach the target area. Upon reaching the target area, a third catheter may then be inserted into the second catheter, this time to perform the desired procedure. When, for example, the target area is within the heart, the outer catheter may be an LVS catheter while the second catheter may be a steerable catheter and the third catheter may be an injection catheter for delivering the therapeutic sought to be injected. Comparatively, when the target area is not accessible via a lumen, the outer catheter may be a rigid endoscope that is inserted into the body through an incision in the skin of the patient. Like the earlier described procedure, in this case as well, the second and third catheters may, then, be snaked into the endoscope to perform the procedure.